Foreword: ugly feelings

This is where I (try to) work out the reasoning behind this practice.

In my About page I state that “I practice yoga (daily), mindfulness (as much as possible), and I strive to live an examined life as an intersectional feminist.”

Sometimes these three aspects of my life practice are in conflict. I practice yoga because it helps me feel grounded, centered, and present. It enables me to breathe deep, inhabit my body, and simply be, bringing the whirring of my brain and the busy-ness of my laboring body to a halt. I’m not sure that I actually “practice” mindfulness, since I can’t seem to really meditate except when I’m practicing yoga. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that I practice “being mindful,” or to say that I practice “presence,” or awareness or what my therapist would call “noticing without judgement.”

Recently, I’ve been “noticing without judgement” a lot of negative or ugly feelings (my own) in response to noticing with judgement a lot of ugly feelings (that aren’t my own). All of these ugly feelings (that aren’t my own) seem to have been brought on by my three-month sabbatical absence and my ex-husband’s inability a.) to deal with single parenting and thus b.) to deal with his ugly feelings (resentment, impatience, exhaustion, etc.) that then get thrown in my direction. After several years of separation and divorce, I’ve kind of had enough.

Before I go into great detail about the ugly feelings all over the place, I feel the need to pause and consider the impetus behind this blog. In particular, I’d like to think about the (potentially) productive nature of being “wound up.” Because while my ugly feelings are certainly in direct response to my ex’s ugly feelings, I think they are also a result of a.) my awareness that I typically perform the brunt of the emotional, structural, and organizational labor of parenting (which he has, for the past three months, been required to perform – often with limited success – hence his ugly feelings); and b.) my realization that the Golden Rule or “being the change” doesn’t seem to be working in this particular situation because c.) my ex continues to view me as a site for his emotional dumping (e.g., he sees me as an object rather than a subject.)

This gets me wound up. I use the term “wound up” because it is a negative affect that seems to have some critical potential here. Sara Ahmed describes being wound up as follows:

To wind something is to twist and to turn it; to wind up can mean to tighten by twisting and turning. You might know that feeling: of becoming tense and tight because of what you encounter. To be wound up by someone who is winding you up: this is a familiar dynamic for those who have assigned feminist killjoys, or even simply those who identify as feminists, however you have been assigned. You are identifying as a certain kind of person, one who is easily provoked, or affected, someone who can be easily wound up because she cannot not be affected by certain things (sexism, injustice, inequality) whenever they are brought up.

In line with this manner of thinking, I want to pick apart the productive nature of being (too) affected or (overly) sensitive to my ex’s aggressiveness. In line with this manner of thinking, I want to consider whether his animosity toward me has to do with my being an uppity feminist, or with my being someone who excels while wearing many hats, or with my having been the one who did the leaving (as opposed to having been the one who was left), or with his being both anxious (depressed?) and addicted, or with all of the above. I want to think about the unproductive nature of having often kept my mouth shut (regardless of my being “wound up”) in order to preserve the peace between us and within our now split nuclear family. I want to ponder whether “taking the high road” or “turning the other cheek” — in an attempt to “be the change” — continues to serve me or,  more importantly, my children. My forgive-and-forget strategy to avoid further anger and aggressive boundary crossings — due to any constellation of the above factors — seems only capable of enabling (if not encouraging) repeat offenses.*

And yet, when I do end up speaking up or not turning the other cheek — thank you for teaching me such amazing emotional communication skills, Dr. Marie! — a “lock” in our dynamic emerges:

There can be a lock in a dynamic; a way a situation becomes stuck, a way you become stuck by a situation. The problem is not simply about the content of what she is saying. She is doing more than saying the wrong thing: she is getting in the way of something, the achievement or accomplishment of some we or another, which is often created by what is not said, or what is not said in response to what has been said by those who are given the right to be right, to say what they like. So much you are supposed not to say, to do, to be, in order to preserve a “we.”

What “achievement or accomplishment of some we [he]” am I “getting in the way of,” and how has that “achievement or accomplishment of some we [he]…created by what is not said”? What am I supposed not to say, to do, to be, in order to preserve this “we” [he]?

There are many things I’m not supposed to say. I am not supposed to say that he is forgetful or disorganized (though his children have said as much — to me, to each other — on occasion). I am not supposed to say that he is addicted and, therefore, self-centered. Therefore, I am not supposed to point out that, while he has no time to arrange tennis lessons for our youngest or plan a birthday party for our middle child – both of which I ended up taking care of in a 48-hour window while living in Namibia, seven hours ahead and with very sketchy internet access – he somehow manages to average six articles and four videos posted to Facebook in any given 2-hour window. I am not supposed to say that he is too busy getting high to deal with our youngest’s mania and intensely real need for structure and boundaries. I am not supposed to say that our middle’s child’s fear that “Daddy might die because he forgets things” is both an indicator of his excessive self-medication and his co-dependent relationship with our children. I am not supposed to say that his seemingly progressive refusal to “helicopter parent” is, in effect, an abdication of parental responsibility for any and all number of things: reasonably limiting our children’s time spent in front of screens or making sure they do their homework, as well as all of the rather straightforward parenting practices of explaining, modeling, and enforcing good hygiene, a healthy diet, etc.**

There are also many things I’m not supposed to do. I am not supposed to successfully juggle single parenting, a rewarding career, and a meaningful, intimate relationship. I am not supposed to set clear and firm boundaries for my kids, hold them accountable for their decisions, and follow through with strict-ish consequences when necessary. I am most certainly not supposed to be getting everything I went looking for when I walked out on him four years ago. I am most certainly not supposed to do all of that with joie de vivre.

I am not supposed to be so fucking happy while also doing all the work. Because in saying and doing and being all of the above, I am really getting in the way of his narrative of “accomplishment.”

But the problem is, his narrative isn’t my problem anymore. And his narrative has already begun to unravel from the inside out. For example, now that my eldest has picked up on Daddy’s addiction(s). Or the time last week when my middle child referred to TV shows they have watched with Daddy as “inappropriate.” And on the various occasions when each of them stated — separately, after I returned from my three-month sabbatical trip — that Daddy “forgets all the time” or “isn’t good at remembering things.” Or when my eldest overheard Daddy talking about his (now ex-)girlfriend (who is married) and Daddy asked him not to tell the other two children about it.

But as his narrative unravels, it becomes my problem, even though I will it otherwise. It becomes my problem when my middle child “worries about Daddy” because he can’t remember shit and “he might get hurt.” It becomes my problem when my eldest worries about Daddy’s drinking and smoking. And it most definitely becomes my problem when Daddy self medicates in the middle of the day on a Saturday afternoon and can’t drive my eldest to a playdate because he’s too inebriated. This means he’s too inebriated to care for the children as well, right? Right.

So I’m not keeping my mouth shut anymore. I hope this blog will make it easier to slog through the next ten years of parallel parenting with The Ex.

*There’s plenty of residual anger though, to be sure. My decision to file for more child support just before my sabbatical led to an hysterical outburst that shocked both of our lawyers and reducing me to tears.

**During our final FaceTime session during my sabbatical trip, my middle child, V, let me know that she was “glad to be coming to [my] house starting next week because – don’t take this the wrong way! – [I’m] stricter than Daddy about screens” and she thought that “doing all those screens [was] getting in the way of [her] doing [her] homework well and remembering things.” From the mouths of babes…

***Names have been changed to protect the innocent and avoid a lawsuit.